We offer an MA in English Literature with academic and creative writing options, as well as a PhD in English Literature

Master of Arts, Literature option

Our MA in English is designed to deepen and extend students' comprehensive background in English Literature at a more advanced and exacting scholarly and professional level. The degree consists of seminar-based coursework and one-on-one faculty supervision of a major research paper or thesis. An important objective of the MA program is to introduce students to advanced study and scholarly activity in order to provide an avenue towards a PhD for those who wish eventually to seek a career in university teaching and literary scholarship. Our program also helps prepare students for teaching at the CEGEP level, and for careers that require strengths in research, writing, and communication. Please consult our faculty profiles for more information on our wide-ranging research interests and initiatives.

Master of Arts, Creative Writing option

The Creative Writing option within the MA in English provides professional training in the art and craft of writing with an advanced scholarly education in English literature. Like an MFA, our MA is centred on workshops which, combined with the creative thesis, comprise more than half of the program. Students also take literature courses in the company of students in the MA academic option and the PhD. Focusing on the interchange between creative activity and scholarship, our program helps to prepare students not only for a writing career but for a PhD in literature or creative writing and/or for CEGEP teaching.

Our program combines a deep historical understanding of the conceptualization, formation and dissemination of literature with training in the tools and formats that mediate our relationship to the objects of literary study. Students develop their research across the axes of literary theory, history and historiography; medium, format and genre; and literary production, circulation and reception. By approaching historical literary forms in relation to their modern and contemporary manifestations, our students temper their comprehension of the history of literature with an awareness of the material and cultural aspects of media.